In case of Beasley for example, you would expect him to be even less effecient, if he would be coming off the bench....

I apologize for imperfect communication, but at first glance, this looks backwards.Coming off the bench, it's easier to get rebounds, steals, blocks, and shot attempts.This is due to being on the floor with less skilled players on both teams.

Williams and Beasley are not far apart in what I call 'productivity' -- probably not the same as what you call 'efficient'. Player efficiency does not exist in a vacuum. There are many examples of high-volume, low-efficiency players who have had big roles for successful teams. More important than the efficiency of the possessions they've "used" are their effects on the whole team's offense.

I see Beasley had another bad shooting game last night (though he was the best rebounder in the game), and Williams got almost as many minutes (and hit 4-5 FT).

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Can you back that estimation up with any real data?

Well, having refined these measures for a few years, I have found that my 'standardized' player Sco and Reb rates have significantly smaller year to year variations than are found in b-r.com's TRB%, Pts/36, etc.And yes, eWins/48 have annual variation about half that of WS/48, also less than PER.

This is not a claim that the magnitude of my starter/sub adjustment is precise or fair in every case. Some players really do better as starters, and vice versa.

But if the alternative is to assume that a players' stats are the same vs starters and vs bench players -- that the best-fitting conversion rate is 1.00 -- this stretches credibility, IMO, and misses a great opportunity in player analysis.

Shumpert leads all rookies at 29.2 mpg, but he's played just 4 of 8 games. This projection assumes he averages 14.6 min over 66 games. But if he doesn't miss any or many more games, he'll be vying for 2nd or 3rd in eWins.

Interestingly, with Beasley out for Minnesota, he's replaced in the starting lineup with the weakest player on the team, a guard, Wayne Ellington -- who then puts in a couple of nice outings.In 2 games, his season Eff% shot up from .360 to .419, and his eW/484 from .02 to .04 -- from nearly nothing to twice that.

Meanwhile, Derrick Williams has stepped up from 13.8 to 15.6 in Sco/36, from 7.7 to 8.1 in Reb, from 2.7 to 2.1 in TO. And from .65 to .98 in e484 -- leading to a projected 2.9 eWin season, which is much closer to the 4.3 eW a #2 pick ordinarily gets. (He'd projected to 1.6 a few days ago.)Now looking like the #7 rookie.

To refresh memories for those who may have read it a long time ago (or are reading it for the first time), he found that (roughly speaking) for every 1% increase in "predicted" lineup usage (obviously usage always sums to 100% in a game), there is a 0.25 increase in ORTG. So that's the value I'm incorporating, and I use 20% as the baseline.

To give an example. Say Player A has a 32% USG. The way I'm doing it now, that will increase his ezPM100 rating by 3 points:

0.25*(32-20) = 3

This moves guys like Irving and Kemba way up the list, while Leuer, Leonard, and Markieff move down a little.

In a 20-point win over Was, the Wolves shot 52% eFG, and they had no use for a 42% shooter.In a 10-pt loss to Tor, they shot 38% and could definitely have used a 42% shooter (who could also rebound).

Was is the worst team in the league and I had Toronto being better than Minnesota before that game while Toronto played at home. And Beasley has better stats against lottery team than he has against playoff teams (which isn't surprising, it is the same for a lot of players).

It's probably true that the vast majority of players do worse against playoff teams; and in fact most have 'worse' stats in the playoffs than they have had in regular seasons. Of course, if you adjust for the level of competition, then equal fractions of players do better/worse against stronger/weaker opponents.

Just as certain highly competitive players will put forth their best efforts against a strong challenge, it may be that coaches feel they can discern when a rookie may be overwhelmed by the NBA's best, and he may be withheld from a starting assignment. Once you're named as a starter, you can't be withdrawn vs elite teams; that would be an insult. Increasing player confidence is one job of the head coach, and the flip side is shielding young players from competitive humiliation.

Do you think rookies are placed against weaker competition to "shield" them? I think it's mainly because coaches use their worst players only when they can get away with it. If they could help it, coaches wouldn't play their replacement-level talent (or rookies) against good opponents, because it doesn't help them win. Obviously there are exceptions and constraints at work, too. I've heard that coaches "protect" young players, but I'm not convinced it's protecting anything other than the coach's job. I would think the most rapid development of players would come when giving them quality opponents. When I play tennis, I only improve playing against better players, not ones that are worse than I am.

It is sorted by PW, which just means Player Wins. PW gives the amount of wins back a player would generate with his SPM value and his played minutes. PW48 is simple PW devided by minutes and multiplied by 48.

Rubio is my frontrunner for ROY.

Mike, is it possible to list an eWins per 48 minutes?

Mike G wrote:

mystic, when you add all the "wins" from these rates, do teams sum close to their pythagorean wins?

I tested it for all seasons from 1994 to 2011. The average error is 0.67, RMSE is 1.06. If I compare that to the real amount of wins, I get as average error 2.56 and RMSE of 3.18. Linear correlation coefficient to the real wins is 0.973.

Sure, but you can just mentally move the decimal over one spot.An average game tends to be ~48.4 minutes most years, and that's how long it takes, on avg, to generate a win. Then 1.0 W per 484 min is an average rate, per player. Fewer decimal places, fewer zeroes, etc. In a list, it's easy to spot who's above and who's below avg.Per 48, avg is about .0992

EvanZ wrote:

If they could help it, coaches wouldn't play their replacement-level talent (or rookies) against good opponents, because it doesn't help them win.

Actually, near-replacement guys are often used against superior talent, in order to wear them down or give the starters a rest, etc.Rookies aren't necessarily going to be held back from getting "schooled" by great players, and it's not necessarily better to leave your best players in against the best opponents; a mismatch against you now will later be a mismatch in your favor.

But when you name a player a Starter, it shouldn't be a frivolous thing. I assume nobody wants to be demoted from any promotion. You have to want it and deserve it.Coming off the bench, and playing against a good number of subs, a rookie experiences a medium level of competition, between amateurs (college) and NBA starters.

Kyrie Irving's eff% is tracked in this thread first at .435, then .465, .506, .517, and now .555 .Of 225 players >180 minutes, I have ranked him behind only Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, Durant, and Rose as a Scorer.Also 15th in Assists; way high in TO, though. And 12th in eWins/484

On winshares / 48 minutes for career to date, the top 7 picks as a group for the 2007, 2008 and 2009 drafts are doing 20-25% better than picks 8-14 as a group, as one might expect. For the 2010 draft the the top 7 picks are on average about 20% behind the next 7 picks. For the 2011 draft, picks 8-14 are doing very very poorly so far. You'd be better off with replacement players for this season.

I was referring to group average and based on winshares per 48 as a conversation point.

Markieff Morris is performing very well. I liked him in the draft and more than his brother.

On the other two, it again comes down to looking at incomplete boxscore stats vs boxscores with a crude attempt at adding shot defense (i.e. winsahres per 48) or a complete metric like RAPM. On early RAPM estimate Brandon Knight has twice the negative impact on defense as he has a positive impact on offense. He isn't replacement level but he is estimated as a net negative on RAPM. Kemba Walker is estimated as having a negative impact on offense and defense (and worse impact on team offense) and would be fairly near to the average level of a replacement player.

Fredette is fairly near to the average level of a replacement player on RAPM and looks bad on boxscore stats too so far. Thompson and Marcus Morris are currently estimated near neutral on RAPM.

I guess winshares / per 48 is the harshest metric for these guys for the reason you noted (on bad teams, usually bad defensive teams).

I guess what you're calling "negative impact" is what I call "below NBA avg", i.e., <1.00 eW/484On a very good and deep team, a .70 or .80 player might have some negative impact from time to time, and he probably won't get much time.On a team with one of the league's 3-4 worst offenses and defenses, players much worse than that will have to get serious minutes.

Or are you saying the Pistons and Bobcats have some really good players that they just aren't using?

Knight looks like Det's 2nd or 3rd best scorer, their 2nd or 3rd best distributor, and a pretty good rebounder. They need these productions. He shoots .545, and the rest of the team shoots .483 .

Walker hasn't shot well, which is to say he's .016 worse than the rest of the team (.480 eff%). He, too, has only 2 to 4 teammates who are as productive overall.